Death's clammy hand brushed a golden-haired moppet Tuesday
afternoon.
Gentlewomen swooned in the crowd that quickly gathered at the
corner of South Main and Elm Streets, so near had tragedy come to
that little girl, Irma Littlefield, aged four, daughter of Mr. and
Mrs. Adoniram Littlefield of 324 Elm Street, that afternoon. Men
wept unashamedly when little Irma, lying crumpled in the dust,
stirred her tiny limbs and opened eyes of deepest blue, even as her
shrieking mother flew to the side of her baby.
Death had passed by Irma, yes. Yet the uncaring runaway freight
wagon that had so nearly snuffed out her brief existence had dealt
the child a blow even as cruel, more savage; perhaps as grievous a
hurt as would have been the sweet baby's death to her stricken
parent, sobbing now with the child's golden head in her lap.
For from Irma's ashen lips, cold still with the awful nearness of
the Grim Reaper, the first faltering words were,
"Where's Tinkle, my little doggie?"
Tinkle, a curly-haired mongrel to the unseeing world, nothing to
the insensible, crushing wheels of the now-distant freight wagon.
Tinkle, more than a dog, more than a pet, more than it is given us
in our wisdom to know, to that little child. A friend, confidante,
companion in all her infant games and journey of the imagination.
"Where's Tinkle?" Alas, Irma....
"That's plenty of that," I told Sara. "Is that what you mean by Heart?
Is that what you mean by 'news'?
"It wouldn't even rate two lines in your own _Argus_ today.
"But don't try to tell me that the major newspapers changed from that
mawkish, overblown sentimentality about unimportant or nonexistent
things. They just printed the same sort of drivel using governments
and countries instead of people. They cluttered themselves up with
portentous speculation and conflicting interpretation until the actual
relation of real events was crowded off the page--because plain facts
weren't exciting enough to sell newspapers!
"Granted, country people are curious about their neighbors, and have
activities too small and numerous to make the _Sun_. That's why
semi-controlled monthlies like the _Argus_ exist. But for the important
stuff, only the exact truth will do."
* * * * *
I thought a minute before going on. Why can't a civilization that will
some day land on the moon, calm an angry woman? I started by pulling
Sara, struggling, onto my lap.
"You think--hold still!--a Reporter doesn't have to know much," I told
her. She nodded violent assent. "You think all he has to do, all day
long, is sit by the Scoop and keep Flacks and psychos away. You think I
just sit there while news goes in the Scoop and comes out the Fotofax
slot.
"To some extent, you're right. WPA doesn't encourage heavy thought on
the job--just that I be big enough and quick enough to keep some fool
from hollering fake advertising plugs or obscenities or nonsense into
the mouthpiece, or maybe smashing the Scoop the way some try to do.
"But I _think_. I take pleasure in thinking, in figuring things out.
Sure, I keep it quiet, permanent Civil Service status or not. If I
didn't keep my mouth shut I'd never have been promoted from Inaplis to
WPA Center Nork.
"Sara, I am in charge of the No. One Scoop in the Northeast Region for
the Greeley--all right, the Groves-Rudermann Eidetic Integrator. Top
spot in the Guild, Sara! Because I keep my eyes open and my mouth shut,
and I tend my Scoop."
"But all the while you're faithfully guarding that hole-in-the-wall,
you're thinking big fat thoughts," she snarled. But she had nestled
into a comfortable position in my lap.
"Faith and fat, your favorite shock words," I said. "Yes, I do think.
I think the Edict was a good thing. I think the WPA is a good and
necessary organization. And I think that Cybernetic Democracy is the
best form of government that men have figured out yet."
"Speak for yourself," Sara muttered. "I don't like being told how to
live by a pinball machine."
* * * * *
Don't hurl antiquities at me, I told her. Cybernetic Democracy and WPA
are root and branch of the same tree. The Edict set up WPA, and WPA
worked, and Congris came as a logical development, and it works. The
voice came before the brain (Sara mumbled something about a Cheshire
Cat, whatever that is) but the point is, now we have both.
Look, it surely wasn't good the way government was before. Stands to
reason as long as men are making the laws, a lot of those laws are
bound to be stupid, or unfair, or just plain corrupt--like the men that
made them.
But electrons don't lie, and they can't be bought, and they don't make
mistakes.
So in every community room throughout the UN, there are Senators.
Microphones linked direct by microwave to Congris, the biggest
cybernetic machine in the world, buried deep in rock somewhere in the
Midwest. All you or any other citizen has to do is clear your ID with
the Page, there protecting his Senator just like I do my Scoop, and
speak your mind.
That complaint, or suggestion or whatever it is, goes straight to
Congris, and Congris tallies it. If enough people have said the same
thing, maybe that call of yours is the one that tips the balance: a new
general law may be made, an old one changed.
Why, don't you realize that if enough people asked Congris to abolish
itself and bring back representative human government, it would? That
directive was the first one programmed, even before the civil codes of
a hundred thousand big and little governments were fed in, compiled and
codified. But it'll never happen.
And if Congris sees it's got just a local matter, it passes your
call down to the district level, and the same computer that settles
everything from tax bills to traffic violations to murder may publish
an ordinance--and that's that.
It's incorruptible, not like man-made law. It's impartial, it's just
and impersonal. It's the greatest good for the greatest number, and as
sure as 51 beats 49, there never was democracy purer than we've got now.
Sara! Wake up!
* * * * *
She sat up yawning, and stretched. "I, and my father before me, have
been writing editorials against Congris for forty-two years. Since
2005," Sara informed me drowsily. "Why don't you tell me all about it?"
Then she sat up, eyes wide with interest. "You are blushing with anger
clear down to your navel," she exclaimed. "I never knew you did that!"
"And you are flat clear down to yours," I snapped. The words I
regretted immediately. They were atavistic, impulsive, and even untrue;
a violation of ethics and my Reporter's code.
"I am not," she said with composure. "But I won't be petty again, so go
on, I guess."
"Well," I mumbled, "all I was going to say is that if it works for
government it works for news too."
She sat up very straight in my lap and sing-songed like a schoolgirl:
"Where the objective of Cybernetic Democracy is justice impartially
rendered, the objective of cybernetic journalism and of the World Press
Association is truth impartially told. 'For you will be told the truth,
and the truth will keep you secure.' Foof."
"Well, it's--it's true, dammit," I said. "You aren't, you of all
people aren't, going to tell me that news isn't just as important as
government!
"Without that Fotofax printer in every home and public cubeo set, how
are people going to know what's going on, and what laws have been
passed? And how well those laws are obeyed? Why, without the _Sun_ we
wouldn't have an informed public. We wouldn't have democracy at all!"
* * * * *
"You," she said crisply, "are confusing news with the _Sun_. News is a
description of events, presented with human intelligence in a manner to
interest and stimulate other human intelligence. The _Sun_ is whatever
that monstrous washing-machine decides is proper to have happened,
presented in a manner to interest no one except other washing-machines."
"Very glib," I replied. "But at least you will admit that news
is important. Then doesn't it seem sensible to give it the same
protection that government has? Protection from error and stupidity and
corruption?"
"Protection?" she wailed. "It's so protected nobody sees it--nobody
sees it--nobody cares!
"That hairy old item you read off the wall. You're right, I wouldn't
use it today any more than the _Sun_ would. But suppose Little Irma
there had been killed by the runaway. We'd both print it.... I'd
tell the story, a story that might make just one more parent careful
that day and save one more child. The _Sun_ would put it in a list,
something like:
DEATHS, Accidental
MILBRY--Littlefield
Irma: 4 dau/ M&M
Adoniram L-, 324 Elm,
struck by wagon Elm at S. Main.
"... and that would be that for a little blonde-haired, blue-eyed,
four-year-old statistic! Why, suppose...."
"Supposition!" I interrupted. "You can't waste time with supposition!
People are entitled to facts. They get facts in the _Sun_. They know
that every item in that sheet is written, checked and checked again
by the special media circuits of Congris we call WPA. Those same
cybernetic banks that make the laws, trace the lawbreakers, do the
thousands of things that make our civilization possible, they filter,
sift and sort the news as it comes in from the Scoops.
"A Fireman reports on a fire, a Policeman reports on a crime, a Doctor
a death or a citizen any important event. Every bit goes to the Greeley
and if it's important enough, comes out in the next regional, national
or world _Sun_. All the Fireman or citizen or whatever has to do, is
press his ID tag to the sensor, for identity, veracity and authority
audit, and have a Second there for corroboration.
"It's the news, straight news, all the news that's important enough to
print, and written so it can be understood...."
"By a washing-machine," Sara broke in. "Sterilized, deodorized,
dehumanized news--and still it stinks."
"Dehumanized! Certainly it's dehumanized! There's none," I said
emphatically, "of that so-called 'human element' about it! Why, the
whole point is to eliminate human error, human prejudice, human
partiality, human ignorance!"
Sara sat up suddenly, driving her rump right into the pit of my
stomach. "Oh," she said, "I almost completely forgot. What do you want
for Christmas?"
Torn between pain and exasperation, I believe I kept myself in check
admirably. From clenched teeth I informed her I was intelligent enough
not to exchange unwanted gifts of equal value, moral enough to abhor
Crimmus. All I could ever want, I said, was not to be bludgeoned in the
belly with a butt.